Centre for Business Model Innovation, Division of Industrial Management, Department of Management and Engineering, Linköping University, Sweden
PhD position “From generic Al to domain-specific value creation”
Application deadline: 16 April 2026
Much of today’s AI debate still centers on general-purpose models. But as a recent Economist piece shows, the real transformation is unfolding elsewhere: in industry, where firms embed specialized AI models deeply into products, operations, and services to drive productivity, reliability, and new value propositions.
Industrial companies like Schneider Electric already run dozens of AI applications across engineering, manufacturing, energy management, and service operations — not as experiments, but as core capabilities. The next frontier is understanding how such domain-specific AI impacts business models, ecosystems, and competitive dynamics.
Against this backdrop, we are announcing a PhD position in B2B Marketing at CBMI – Centre for Business Model Innovation, focused on how specialized AI models transform value creation, innovation, and competition in B2B contexts.
The position offers a competitive PhD salary and employment benefits, close collaboration with companies, and an international research environment.
If you’re interested in researching AI where it actually creates value — close to firms, technologies, and markets — this could be a great opportunity.
The formal application deadline is 16th April, but we encourage candidates to apply as early as possible. You don’t need to have completed your degree at the time of application; however, the degree must be completed before the position starts.
The position is part of the ELLIIT (Excellence Center at Linköping–Lund in Information Technology) funded research project SPAISIE (Specialized AI Models in Service Innovation and Engineering).
More info about the PhD position here.
